Elon replies with "sure" in response to a tweet asking him for the ability to have a Tesla's windows to automatically close when parked and detecting rain. We'll see if this happens soon but sounds promising given the straightforward, affirmative answer.
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Teslas to Have Windows Auto-Close When It Rains
- Thread starter NoGasNoBrakes
- Start date
This is really indicative of the thought (and veracity) behind Elon's tweets. Having the windows automatically roll up at any point is not wise because there may be extremities (arms, legs, dog noses, etc.) hanging out of them. And even if you use the weight sensors and cabin camera to determine occupancy, it is still not a slam dunk and is going to require some testing and validation. Do you think Elon thought about all this before tweeting "Sure?"
Electric windows typically have a sensor system built-in and will roll back down if they encounter a significant obstacle. It might hurt a bit but shouldn't harm. I'm sure Teslas have the same system.
You can remotely close windows now so they must have already addressed these issues.
cpa
Active Member
Sure, just like the front passenger window that rolls down on the M3 about 3/8" when the car is parked and turned off. "We are aware of this issue, and the next software update will address and fix this." Four years later, meanwhile. . . .we are still waiting.
Presumably this would require the car to stay awake so it could “see” the rain, right? So probably would cause significant vampire drain, comparable to Sentry Mode, I would guess.
cpa
Active Member
Ditto. Is your car over four years old? Ours started doing this with an update sometime in the summer of 2018, and it has been this way ever since. What happens is that the car is locked and the windows are up. Then 5-10 minutes later we receive notification that the "passenger side window" is not rolled up. So, ostensibly this happens a short time after the car turns off.
Don't they do this when the weather is cold, so that if it freezes you can still open the door? I thought I read that this was intentional (on some models?) Maybe it's going down a little too far and a calibration would help? (Hold the window up button for a few seconds, roll it down and hold the down button for a few seconds etc).
The freezing temp feature you're talking about has existed for a while now. If the outside temp is "somewhat close" to freezing, the windows will automatically lower a bit. They are still closed but lower. Even if the window freezes to the rubber and isn't able to lower when you open the door, it would clear the chrome (or blackened) trim. This would NOT send a notification that a window is open nor would it actually open a window.
The only cases where I actually had a window roll down were from my own actions, unwillingly. I've sometimes touched the switches of the rear windows as I was opening the door. Took me a while to realize I was actually the one doing it.
The only cases where I actually had a window roll down were from my own actions, unwillingly. I've sometimes touched the switches of the rear windows as I was opening the door. Took me a while to realize I was actually the one doing it.
Elon merely typed four letters into Twitter while sitting on the porcelain throne, I'd say it's on the media sites for creating articles about something like this based on a one-word tweet
Zilla91
Active Member
My car struggles to sense the rain to operate the windscreen wipers. I’d concentrate on fixing that before anything else
roblab
Active Member
And my car senses rain with ease. I wonder if your car needs some kind of service, because the car senses rain fairly well, though what would I know, living in California.
Zilla91
Active Member
Does it ever rain in sunny California?
Believe me, it doesn’t sense rain with ease in rainy England
It senses rain fine perfectly well here, 90% of the time, with a 5% margin of error, which is par for the course for good AI 
. Seriously most of the times auto wipers work perfectly, but there are occasions where they either don't see anything or they think it's raining buckets and there's almost nothing.
. Seriously most of the times auto wipers work perfectly, but there are occasions where they either don't see anything or they think it's raining buckets and there's almost nothing.I assume your car is new. The windshield comes with some kind of coating that is the opposite of rain X. Instead of making water bead, it makes it spread out into a thin film. Apply rain X and the sensing should be better.
srs5694
Active Member
This is signal detection theory. There are four conditions, as illustrated here:
The "hit" and "correct rejection" cases are ones where the car gets it right -- it runs the wipers when there's rain and does not run the wipers when there is no rain, respectively. The "miss" and "false alarm" categories are ones where the car gets it wrong, but in entirely different ways, and it's important to consider both cases. In my experience, my Model 3 rarely falls into the "miss" category (but see below); however, it often experiences false alarms. The wipers will sometimes start up for no apparent reason. My suspicion is that the system is misinterpreting dirt/dust on the windshield, perhaps interacting with glare from the sun, as rain. Sometimes using the washer fluid squirter can clear up the problem. Other times I've had to disable the wipers.
Also, and more importantly, although I said that my Model 3 rarely enters "miss" category, in this case it's more complicated than that, because rain isn't a binary thing. Rain can be anything from a light mist to a dangerous downpour; it can be steady or variable; it can be warm, freezing, or turn to snow. The appropriate wiper speed varies depending on these factors. In my experience (mostly in New England, but with road trips westward as far as Cincinnati), my Model 3 often runs the wipers at too low a speed. This can (rarely) include what would be called misses in SDT, but more often it's just that the wipers end up running at one, or sometimes two, speeds too low. When rain is still very light, this can be handled by pressing the manual-wipe button on the left stalk, but this solution is annoying at best; and when they're running too slowly with heavier rain, it's necessary to fumble with the awkward on-screen controls to manually set them higher. This is, in fact, my #1 complaint about the Tesla's controls. I'm not alone in these observations; many people have the same complaint, particularly those who live in areas that see lots of rain. Thus, I don't think it's a matter of my car needing service; it's one of many examples of Teslas being designed in southern California for the driving conditions in southern California, with conditions in other areas seeing little consideration.
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